


Happy Birthday

by Counterpunch



Category: Fire Emblem: Kakusei | Fire Emblem: Awakening
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-26
Updated: 2017-01-26
Packaged: 2018-09-20 01:52:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,165
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9470198
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Counterpunch/pseuds/Counterpunch
Summary: She would never forget the look on her mother's face, and how savagely proud she herself had felt to put it there. She deserved to feel bad. Because Severa felt bad.The next year, they both were gone.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was not written by me, but I was given permission to share it on the writer's behalf

It was her birthday. 

She remembered the last year there had been celebration - of a sort, anyway. There was no means to have a cake, not by then, but from somewhere, her father found apples, and her mother enough flour and eggs to make a kind of pastry. 

It all irritated her. She wanted cake. She wanted presents. She was old enough to understand why she didn't - couldn't - have those things, but she wanted them. And the apple tarts had no sugar, the apples were far from sweet enough to make up for the lack, and she said as much, proclaimed loudly dissatisfaction: with them, with her parents, with the whole day. 

She would never forget the look on her mother's face, and how savagely proud she herself had felt to put it there. She deserved to feel bad. Because Severa felt bad. 

The next year, they both were gone. 

Still, every January, no matter how she tried to forget, to not count the days, she knew when it arrived. When the memories swirled in around it: of the year her father got her a stubby wooden lance, and how she had sat precariously perched upon a stool, her imagination sending her flying, just like the pegasus knights. The year it snowed, when she awoke to a world of pristine white, and she pelted her parents with snowballs, and she remembered her mother laughing as she rarely did, carefree and easy, and how the snow sparkled in her hair, and she was the most beautiful thing Severa had ever seen. The year she had asked to help with the cake, and her tears when the icing clumped and peaked, and then her mother showing her how, smooth and sure, and she had watched in awe as it worked for her, too. 

And finally, the last time. Her parents' smiles. The pitiful tarts, the crust too pale and doughy, the apples mealy and sour. And that look, that look of defeat, and her own gleeful slamming away, hiding, self-pity. 

How many years had it been? Five? Six? Nobody celebrated anymore. Birthdays, holidays, festivals: those were for peacetimes. 

Severa rose and dressed and brushed her hair, pulling it into neat, long tails, the same motions she went through every day. She could hear the familiar sounds of camp around her, a whole army stirring slowly to life, and she told herself to take comfort in the easy pace of it. This was war, but of a very different sort than the one she had known... before. 

She went in search of breakfast - and distraction. But she wasn't even out of her tent before she stumbled. Because some idiot had left something right in the middle of -

She froze. It was a box. Unadorned, but tied neatly with ribbon. And her name was on it, in script she well recognized. She bit her lip, almost hard enough to bleed. 

No one was paying her any mind, but she looked around regardless. As if her mother was the type to hide away and giggle to herself, watching - yeah, right. Severa knew perfectly well why she hadn't just handed this over. 

Tarts - all she could think of were tarts. Stupid apple tarts that tasted like sour defeat. 

She grabbed the box and ducked back inside, afraid she would start to cry. Stupid, stupid tarts. 

Her hands were shaking so hard she fumbled far longer than she should have at the ribbon, then the lid. Inside was a necklace, nothing fancy, but made of tightly braided, butter-smooth cords of leather, with a perfect little spiral shell at the end, the outside whorled bluish-grey against pearl white, the inside a smooth, pleasing pink. Even the hole through the shell was perfectly placed. 

For a moment, she felt a wild urge to toss it away. To crush it. To take her sword to the leather.

She didn't deserve it. She didn't deserve anything. Anything at all. 

Instead, she put it over her head, tucking the shell inside her shirt. It was cold, but quickly warmed against her skin. 

Her mother was alone at breakfast. She glanced up and smiled, but didn't get up. How many times had Severa rebuffed her? She had learned. 

Her mother wouldn't come to her. Severa went to her mother. 

And her mother said, "Lucina told me it's your birthday."

Severa couldn't look at her, as awkward and hopeless as she always felt when she couldn't fall back on the safety of her anger. She fidgeted. She could feel the eyes on her. "Yeah," she finally said. 

"Happy birthday."

"I... thanks. I guess. And... also..." She toyed with the part of the necklace that stuck out from her collar, but couldn't make herself go on. She knew her face was red. She looked down at her hands, twisting her fingers together. 

"I wanted something special," her mother said. "But... I don't really know what you like."

"You like shells. I remember."

"You... remember." A pause, then a brief laugh. "Of course you do. I must have liked them in your time, as well. Were there shells?"

"I guess, how should I know? I just wanted to say -" But she bit it off, forced herself to stop, to be nice, she could be nice, she could be...

"Severa?"

She shook her head, and ducked it down lower, because she was going to cry. She didn't know what to feel now, or what to say, or what to do. "I'm sorry," she finally whispered. "I'm sorry I didn't... I didn't like them. I never thought... I'm sorry."

"I'm afraid I don't -"

But she shook her head again, harder now. "My mother. My... not you. Her. I'm... I'm sorry..."

She flinched at the hand against her shoulder, but it did no more than rest there, and wait. "She understood, Severa."

"How do you know?"

"Because she liked shells, and she wanted to give you everything in the world. I don't have a lot to give, either. I can only pray it's enough."

It took her a long moment to work up her courage. She made herself look up - and smile. The smile she couldn't ever give for her father finding apples, and her mother making tarts, and how hard they had fought for her, for the whole world. "It is. I just..."

"You're just hurting. I know. It's okay to hurt. I'm here for you, okay? Just like I promised. I'm not going anywhere."

There were apple tarts with breakfast. Severa ate four. They were sweet and warm and good. She couldn't tell them, of course, but she hoped they knew: their gift wasn't that one day. It was every day of her life. Of all their lives. And hope, here, for a peaceful future. One day. 

"You really like those," her mother - Cordelia - said.

"...Yeah. I guess I do. I mean, they're all right." 

"I could make you some. Next time we're near a town, I have the most wonderful recipe..."


End file.
